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Tasklist

FS#19864 - [linux-firmware] make part of the base group and an optdepend of kernel26/kernel26-lts

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Łukasz Fibinger (lucke) - Saturday, 19 June 2010, 17:07 GMT
Last edited by Thomas Bächler (brain0) - Sunday, 11 July 2010, 10:38 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages: Testing
Status Closed
Assigned To Thomas Bächler (brain0)
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 0%
Votes 1
Private No

Details

Some people would surely like to get rid of linux-firmware if they don't need it. Wouldn't it be a better idea to make it part of the base group, so everyone installing Arch would have it anyway, instead of a hard dependency, which you cannot really get rid of unless you -Rd it and stop updating the kernel26/kernel26-lts packages?
This task depends upon

Closed by  Thomas Bächler (brain0)
Sunday, 11 July 2010, 10:38 GMT
Reason for closing:  Won't implement
Additional comments about closing:  If you really don't want it, create an empty dummy package with
provides=('linux-firmware=99999999 9999999')

The dependency will stay.
Comment by Roman Kyrylych (Romashka) - Saturday, 19 June 2010, 19:56 GMT
optdepend is fine, but I see no reason why it should be in base group
the plan is to reduce the number packages in the group even more,
when the installer will be improved to preselect the required packages automatically
(and when that happens - installer will be able to preselect linux-firmware automatically, when needed)
Comment by Łukasz Fibinger (lucke) - Saturday, 19 June 2010, 20:04 GMT
I don't know what's happening in the installer land - if it is/will be possible to automatically install it without it being in the base group, then everything seems okay to me. One of the advantages of linux-firmware over kernel26-firmware I see is that whatever wifi chipset you have, it will work after rebooting after installing (as long as the required firmware is in linux-firmware).

I only want to get rid of the hard dependency.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Sunday, 20 June 2010, 09:37 GMT
Turning this into optdepend will cause a lot of bugreports about not-working hardware due to missing firmware. There's something to say about having useless firmware installed on your system, but the kernel26 already contains huge amounts of modules that are never used on regular systems.
Comment by Allan McRae (Allan) - Sunday, 20 June 2010, 09:48 GMT
I would advocate it being a kernel26 optdepends but in the base group. That way, the majority of people who install Arch will select the whole base group and install it but I can remove it if I do not need it on my system.


Comment by Tobias Powalowski (tpowa) - Sunday, 20 June 2010, 12:55 GMT
The firmware must be there, some hardware scsi and network controllers need those files so i don't see any chance to have it as optdepend.
Comment by Jan de Groot (JGC) - Monday, 21 June 2010, 06:42 GMT
The problem is that this has been a dependency for ages. Before we had kernel26-firmware, the firmware files were included in the drivers themselves inside kernel26. After that, the firmware files were split to kernel26-firmware, which is a dependency for kernel26. Now we have linux-firmware replacing that and it's a dependency again.
Changing this to optdepends means that someone who upgrades from an older installation will get a huge list of updates, with a very important package scrolling by as optdepend. The optdepend will be missed and will cause an unbootable system.

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